Shattering a baseball dream

In the summer of 1955, going into my junior year in high school, I had life figured out. As a junior, I would become the starting center fielder for my high school baseball team and play so well in my senior year that I'd attract the attention of baseball scouts. Though every big league team would want me, I'd sign a bonus contract with my hometown Pittsburgh Pirates and buy a house for my working-class mother.

Every day that summer I spent hours shagging fly balls at nearby ball fields. I learned the proper angle to take on balls hit into the outfield gap, worked on keeping my balance on shoe string catches, and practiced going back on fly balls hit over my head. When I played in ball games, I learned to hit the ball to all fields, and developed a hustling and aggressive style on the bases that would have made Ty Cobb proud.

All that changed on a Saturday in late August on a freak change in the weather. The day should have been warm and sunny - a perfect day to play baseball or hitchhike out to Forbes Field to watch the Pirates. But it was a rare August day, rainy and cool enough to hint at autumn and football season.

One of my ball-playing buddies dug up a football and we headed to a nearby playground field for a game. We should have had enough sense to play touch football, but the field was soft and muddy, so we decided to play tackle. I remember taking a snap from center, rolling out around right end, and heading up field until one of my buddies threw a rolling block into my legs. As I flew into the air, I made the mistake of reaching out with my left arm to cushion my fall. When the weight of my body came down on my hand, my elbow, weakened by an earlier injury, snapped and shattered like a twig.

I'd broken my elbow so badly that Dr. Kerr, a renown Pittsburgh surgeon, had to insert a pin to save my arm. Once out of the hospital, I had to carry a bucket of bricks up and down the alley where I lived to straighten out my arm and made visits to the hospital every Saturday for rehab with Dr. Kerr. He would examine my elbow with its ugly 6-inch scar and yank my arm up and down until I nearly passed out from the pain.

But no matter how many times Dr. Kerr yanked away, no matter how many times I carried that bucket of bricks up and down the alley, I couldn't straighten out my arm. When I returned to high school that fall, my arm stuck out at an angle, and would stay that way for the rest of my life.

My heart goes out to today's young athletes whose early careers and high hopes have been disrupted and threatened by the pandemic. My greatest fear, after I had shattered my elbow, was that I had also shattered my hope of playing big league baseball and, worse yet, would never be able to play baseball again.

That spring, even with my damaged elbow, I did try out for my high school baseball team, and though I couldn't touch my left shoulder with my left hand, had enough movement and strength in my left arm to make the team. And I did become the starting center fielder in my senior year, but my dream of attracting scouts and playing big league baseball was as impossible as straightening out my elbow.

Though I never lived my big league dream, I was able to play high school and sandlot baseball in Pittsburgh and, once my baseball days were over, played in softball leagues, including those in the Carbondale Park District and Tri-County leagues.

As for today's young athletes, I can only hope that, despite all the disappointment and uncertainties facing them, their love of the game will remain constant and unbreakable until they return to the playing field.

• Reading Baseball is a series of stories and commentaries by Richard "Pete" Peterson, author of "Growing Up With Clemente" and the editor of The St Louis Baseball Reader. His essays appear regularly in the Times and on WSIU 91.9 FM.